The field of the present invention is bollards and the mounting thereof.
Bollards come in a great variety of sizes, shapes and capabilities. Mountings for such devices also are accomplished by a variety of means. Bollards can be fixed or retractable. There are heavy duty bollard designs with the bollard fully extending into a foundation. Lighter duty bollards are mounted to a base fixed to an anchor associated with a foundation. A full range of aesthetics from strictly utilitarian to architecturally responsive are employed.
Typical lighter duty bollards use a base casting separately installed and able to receive a bollard tube. Such castings must be installed separately from the bollard. Anchor holes extending through the casting receive threaded anchor shafts. The casting rests upon bottom nuts associated with the threaded anchor shafts before positioning of the casting. Once the casting is positioned, top nuts are installed to draw down the casting into a compressed state between the top and bottom nuts on ach threaded anchor shaft. Adjustments to the bottom nuts provide for vertical orientation of the casting. The top nuts then hold the casting in place. A bollard cap or tube is then fastened to the casting, typically by set screws.
The foregoing mounting of castings to support bollards is time consuming and inconvenient. The mounting must be disassembled substantially to provide for adjusting the vertical orientation. Further, there is no preloading aside from the short portion of the threaded anchor shaft between top and bottom nuts. Without preloading beyond the top and bottom nuts, no amount of tightening will impact on the stability of the mount. Further, additional adjustment to vertically lower the final position of the bollard relative to the foundation results in compounding the difficulty of adjustment.